A few days after our arrival, when I came down to breakfast alone, my step-mother said to me, “Clide, it is time that you thought a little of business now. I think you told me that your wife's fortune is in her own right; this is very desirable to begin with, but of course it cannot remain so. Your rights as a husband must be properly protected.”
“My wife's affection and my confidence in her are the only security I require on that, madam,” I replied stiffly.
“The sentiment does honor to you both,” observed Mrs. de Winton, with an undertone of sarcasm that did not escape me; “but you do not expect Admiral de Winton or Sir Simon Harness to be satisfied with such a sentimental guarantee.”
“I understand you, and I respect your motives,” was my cold rejoinder; “but as I am not responsible to any one but myself for the good or bad management of myself and my property, I do not recognize any one's right, trustee or relation, to interfere with me, and still less to interfere with my wife.”
“Who talks of interfering with your wife? You tell me she is an heiress with forty thousand pounds in the Funds and an estate in Canada. Your father's widow and your late guardian and trustee have certainly a right to ask the whereabouts of the money and the land. Admitting that your wife be as devoted and as disinterested as you believe, is she entirely her own mistress? This tyrannical old uncle who has kept her in such bondage—how far did he or does he hold control over her fortune? For her sake as much as for your own you should put yourself in possession of these facts.”
This view of the case had not occurred to me. I saw the justice of it, and frankly said so.
“Isabel will put no obstacle in the way of a just and prudent arrangement; I am quite sure of that,” I said emphatically. “My only fear is that she should see in this horrid investigation a desire on my part to count my prize, and perhaps suspect me of having had a base, ulterior motive in marrying her; and rather than wrong myself or wound her by such a suspicion, I would sooner never see a penny of her money or an acre of her land.”
“And does your wife share these sentiments? Is she quite as indifferent about the matter as you are?” inquired my step-mother.
“Every bit!” I answered vehemently.
“Did she tell you so?”